Rebirth
by SabaceanBabe
Summary: Sharon is in the hands of the Cylons and Helo finds that it’s up to him to rescue her before the Cylons take their child.
1. Chapter 1

**Rebirth**

Authors: SabaceanBabe and Un4scene

Word count: 5,272

Date: June 10, 2005

Rating: PG-13

Characters and pairings: Helo/Sharon, Boomer, Tyrol, Kara

Summary: Sharon is in the hands of the Cylons and Helo finds that it's up to him to rescue her before the Cylons take their child.

Spoilers: all of season 1, a few from the rumors we've heard of season two

Disclaimer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to lots of people, but none of them are me. Not making a profit - please don't sue.

Authors' notes: This is a birthday present for Amsie (June 12, people – send her love). She wanted a Helo/Sharon story that wasn't totally depressing and had some happy and shippy baby bits. I'm not sure if this is that, but it is what she gets. ;)

Surrounded by the nothingness of her dreams, she called for him. Her faith in God and in her fellow Cylons had been shaken to its core. Everything she had ever known was gone. Everything she had ever believed in was a lie.

Except for him. He wasn't like her. He was a fragile human and yet he was the only thing left that she could count on. But he _was_ only human; he couldn't hear her. And because he couldn't hear her, he didn't know that she needed him.

She called for him in her dreams, but he never came.

xxx

_"I love you…"_

The memory of Sharon's last words to him as she led the chrome toasters away echoed in his head as Helo passed through the brig to maximum security. Intertwined with the memory was Boomer's wordless cry as her sentence was passed – he couldn't think of her as Sharon anymore for she was too different from his Sharon.

_Death…_

It was a harsh word and a harsh fate. Helo had contemplated it himself more than he liked recently, his own as well as that of others, human and Cylon alike. Now he had to come to terms with it in regard to the rook who had been his responsibility since she had been assigned to Galactica. She was a rook no longer and Helo also had to come to terms with the fact that he was, in part, responsible for that sentence of death.

The trial had been brief; the evidence against her was overwhelming and incontrovertible. Even so, Boomer might have escaped the death sentence had it not been for the testimony of Kara and himself. Attempted murder could be forgiven. It didn't automatically carry a sentence of death, even if the victim was the commanding officer of the entire Colonial military force. But Sharon Valerii was a Cylon and that fact couldn't be ignored or downplayed. She was the enemy and dangerous.

"—chine and you don't keep a dangerous machine around!"

The angry voice belonged to the Chief. There was a clatter of something heavy hitting metal and Helo quickened his pace, not sure what he'd find. He had enough experience of brigs to suspect that the sound he'd heard was that of a body hitting the bars of a cell, hard.

Rounding the corner, Helo saw two Marine guards watching as Chief Tyrol held Boomer's wrist in a painful grip, her arm pulled through the bars as she struggled to break free. "Men and women from _my crew _are dead because of you. _Socinus_ is dead because of _you_." Tyrol's voice was filled with condemnation and something that Helo recognized as self-loathing. It occurred to him that Tyrol was in the same place Helo had been a few weeks before, when he'd first learned that Sharon was a Cylon and that so many things had been lies.

It disturbed Helo more than a little that the guards did nothing to protect their prisoner. Boomer looked frightened and defiant at once, the emotions at war on her beautiful, scarred face. "Stand down, Chief!" Helo's voice was steel.

Tyrol released Boomer's wrist as though it burned him and took a step back. He and the startled Marines saluted Helo. Tyrol's face was flushed, his dark eyes intense.

"What the hell is going on here?" Helo addressed the guards. His gaze flickered over to the Chief for a second before he continued. "Since when is a visitor allowed to assault a prisoner?" Tyrol's eyes widened, surprised at the accusation.

"Sir?" one of the guards ventured.

"I can see the marks on her wrist from here, Corporal." Sharon's eyes— Boomer's eyes seemed to bore into Helo as she rubbed at the angry red impressions the Chief's fingers had left on her skin. There was already the shadow of a bruise on her cheek, where the bone had connected with one of the bars.

"She's a Cylon, sir," the younger guard stated, as though that were justification for any abuse.

"She is a prisoner under your care and you will treat her as such."

"Collaborator."

Helo's head whipped around. He stared at Tyrol, saw the same contempt in the man's eyes that had been directed at Boomer, turned on Helo instead. "What did you say, Chief?"

"You're a frakking Cylon sympathizer. Sir."

Helo kept his own anger under tight control. "Get out."

"What?"

"You heard me, Chief. Get out. I won't report this, because I know what you're going through, but it ends now."

Tyrol looked at Helo for a long moment, but then he seemed to deflate. The hostility faded from his eyes and he shook his head. "She used you, Lieutenant, just like she did me. How can you defend her? For frak's sake, sir, you testified against her."

"She is what she is, Chief." Helo looked at Boomer, who had retreated to a corner of the cell, at the fear in her eyes. He didn't see a Cylon saboteur, an attempted murderer; he saw a broken, terrified child. She seemed younger now, more raw than he had ever seen her. "You're right that we can't keep a dangerous machine around, but that doesn't mean it's okay to hurt her. Isn't it enough that she has to die?"

"She's not human, sir." Tyrol's face showed his confusion at Helo's attitude.

A faint sound drew Helo's eyes back to Boomer. She looked as though she were about to say something, but stopped herself; he didn't know if she would've spoken to him or to Tyrol. Her eyes met Helo's, held. "Actually, Chief, she is physically human." He thought of Sharon as he had last seen her on Kobol, her pregnancy just starting to show.

"Is that what the other one told you?"

Helo'd had enough of this conversation; he hadn't come here to compare notes with Tyrol but to say goodbye to Boomer, who had once been his friend. He broke eye contact with Boomer, turned again to the man who had been her lover. "You're dismissed, Chief." Helo's tone invited no argument.

Tyrol saluted stiffly and wheeled about, walking quickly away. The younger Marine followed to unlock the door and release him into the main part of the brig while the other remained at his post.

"Corporal, you're responsible for the safety of your charges. Don't forget it again."

"Yes, sir." The man's neutral expression cracked for a second and Helo wondered if he, too, thought him a Cylon sympathizer.

Ignoring the guard, Helo approached the cell. Boomer's face seemed to melt as the tears that had threatened finally spilled. "Helo." His name was a plea. She almost ran to the bars, reaching through them, reaching for him. He laced his fingers with hers. "This isn't happening… _Why_ is this happening?"

His voice was gentle as he answered her. "It is happening, Boomer. You're a Cylon."

"No, it isn't true."

She shook her head, emphasizing the denial, the movement not stopping when Helo said, "You were programmed to believe you're human, but you _are_ a Cylon."

"Please, don't let them kill me, Helo."

"I can't do anything about it, Boomer." Her cold fingers tightened on his, squeezing almost to the point of pain. "I came to say goodbye and to let you know that I'll be there. You won't die alone."

A change came over her face then. Suddenly, Helo knew that what he saw wasn't Boomer, but rather a human-model Cylon, one that was very much aware of what she was. Her fear was gone, replaced by curiosity. "I think I understand why you were chosen."

"Chosen for what?"

"To father the next generation."

Helo tried to pull his hands away from the Cylon, but she wouldn't let him. Her grip was too strong for him to break. Just that quickly, the Marine standing in sullen silence only a few meters away might as well have been on the other side of the galaxy – if she chose to harm Helo, the guard couldn't prevent it, whether he wanted to or not.

The Cylon cocked her head, looked at him with a strange half smile. "Are you frightened of me, Helo?"

Was he afraid? He held himself motionless as he thought about it and realized that he wasn't. She could probably kill him in a heartbeat, but he didn't think she would.

Not waiting for him to answer, she continued, "She's calling for you, you know. She has been for days."

"Who's calling for me?"

"Your Sharon. The others have her. They'll take the child." Helo felt his pulse begin to pound, imagined his heart skipped a beat as she continued conversationally, "Once it's born, they'll no longer have a use for her. They see her as defective. A traitor." She leaned in closer until her face pressed against the bars, close enough that Helo could feel her breath. "She'll die a traitor's death."

Not expecting a useful answer, still he had to ask. "Do you know where she is?"

"They're on Kobol, for now. A baseship is on its way." As before, without warning, she changed. Boomer looked at him through liquid-dark eyes, begging him to help her.

"Helo, what's happening to me?" she whispered.

xxx

Sharon had dreamed again. Dreamed that she had called for Helo until her voice had become hoarse, her throat sore, until all that could be heard was a pitiful whimper. She thought she was awake now, because she could neither see nor hear anything; when in the dream, a misty light surrounded her.

In reality, she was held in darkness, both the literal darkness imposed by a straightforward lack of light and the more figurative darkness of being cut off from the system. Always, the system had been in the back of her mind, able to be accessed in case of need. Always, there had been a dim awareness that she wasn't alone, that others of her kind were within reach. There was no instant communication, no reading of minds. She hadn't even noticed the system anymore until it was gone, although she thought that the others could still spy on her through the severed connection.

The others had taken everything else from her as well before discarding her here: her clothes, her weapons and ammunition, her canteen. To compensate, her cell was kept at a temperature that was bearable, if not precisely comfortable. Sharon had become used to it – at least she was dry.

She didn't know how long she had been held here, or even where "here" was. They fed and watered her at irregular intervals as though she were an animal. Sometimes when there was food there was light, but mostly it was just the darkness, the scent and the brief difference in air quality during its delivery the only clue that she had been given food or water.

At first, she hadn't worried. She carried Helo's child, after all, and the fetus was too new, too undeveloped for the others to risk either taking it from her or causing her real harm. Until the baby was viable, they couldn't kill her.

But she had realized over the past however much time it was that she hadn't thought things through. She had kept Helo safe from the immediate danger of the Centurions that hunted them by the simple expedient of breaking off from the rest of the group. Sharon had known they wanted her more than the humans, with the possible exception of Helo, and had acted on that knowledge, protecting Helo and by extension the rest the best way she could. The fact that she had acted as a decoy had allowed them the time they needed to escape the planet's surface.

But after a week on the run, the Centurions – the ones the humans called "toasters" – had caught her and taken her to the others. There had been half a dozen of them, including one of her own model. She had tried to speak to them, tried to interject herself into their discussion of her, of Helo, of the other humans who had been trapped on Kobol, but they hadn't permitted it. They had talked around her as if she couldn't hear them. It was then that she had been cut off from the system. Finally, one of the Six models had ordered the Centurions to take her to a holding area to await interrogation.

Sharon had been _held awaiting interrogation_ for long enough to think through quite a few different scenarios, most of them unsettling. The most frightening of them – for she was now frightened, for both herself and her child – was the prospect that the others would take the fetus, keep it alive through artificial means and thus make Sharon unnecessary.

Curling protectively into a fetal position, she let the tears come. "Helo…" His name echoed her dreams.

After a time she felt warmer, safer somehow, as she had when she and Helo were on Caprica. Even though there was no real need to close her eyes – the darkness was almost suffocating in its intensity – close them she did. She pretended that Helo was there with her, his arms and body wrapped around her, keeping her and their child safe.

xxx

She had held herself together, at the end, and Helo thought that might have been, at least in part, due to his presence. When the guards had brought her into the room, she had scanned the faces of those who had come to watch her die, looking for one in particular, but not finding him. Tyrol hadn't attended Boomer's execution and Helo had watched the hope die in her face. She had looked so lost as they seated her in a chair in the center of the stage. Ignoring the whispers and looks directed at him – some curious, some accusing – Helo had pushed his way through the crowd to the front where she couldn't help but see him.

The moment she spotted him, he knew it. She stiffened, straightened her back and pressed her shoulders into the chair, lifted her chin. Her wide, terrified eyes locked on his and held, unblinking, as Doc Cottle administered the injection that would take her life. He hadn't looked away until she was well and truly gone.

For Boomer, there was no more fear or pain or uncertainty. Whatever part of her had been human was, he hoped, at rest. As for that part of her which was Cylon, if what Sharon had said was true, then it had uploaded itself to another copy. Resting his forehead against the cool metal of Boomer's locker in quarters, Helo entertained the possibility that Boomer's Cylon soul may have joined with Sharon's consciousness, since the fleet wasn't far from Kobol. Sharon might be the nearest copy.

"Gods…" Straightening, he pulled open the door. The locker was filled with the same sorts of things that could be found in most of the lockers aboard Galactica: clean uniforms, boots, a few items of civilian clothing, soap, shampoo, a few photographs. There was nothing out of the ordinary and Helo felt strangely disappointed.

Without ceremony, he shoved her things into a bag. Most of it would go to the quartermaster to put back into circulation. The private things, such as the photographs, Helo would see if the Chief wanted. Recalling their last meeting, Helo had to laugh at himself for thinking the man might want a reminder of her. But they were supposed to have had feelings for each other. If their positions had been reversed, if it had been Sharon executed, Helo would've wanted to keep whatever he could of her.

The realization surprised him.

About to close the door of the now-empty locker, Helo was caught by his reflection in the mirror, saw what Boomer must have seen: his face, but older, thinner, dark shadows painted under his eyes. On the mirror's smooth surface there were traces of what looked like yellow paint. Helo examined it more closely and saw the faint outline of a word – _Cylon_ – that had been scrawled there and hastily wiped away. He couldn't help but wonder if that was something he had to look forward to, merely because he had refused to abandon her.

What appeared to be a photograph was wedged behind the mirror; he hadn't seen it until he had leaned in close to those yellow flecks. The photo stuck when he pulled on it and he carefully pried at the mirror. It and a couple of others slipped free and he realized they had probably fallen behind it some time ago, forgotten.

The photo had been taken a few weeks before the decommissioning ceremony; a lifetime ago, it seemed to him now. The photographer had captured the smiling faces of Boomer, Starbuck, Flattop, and himself, arms slung over each other's shoulders, beers in their hands. They had been celebrating Boomer's first solo landing – not normally such a big deal, but it had been in front of the Old Man and it had been flawless. Helo smiled remembering it. That had been a good day – none of them had known then that it was one of their last.

Helo's grip on the flimsy piece of pasteboard tightened. Flattop and Boomer were dead. The Starbuck and Helo in that photograph were just as dead, he thought, even though they both still physically lived. No one who had survived that day of destruction would ever be the same.

Slipping the photo into his pocket, Helo hefted the sack that contained all that was left of Boomer. Just as the things in the sack would be reassigned, so would her rack and her locker. Helo felt an abrupt longing for a lollipop. He lifted a hand and roughly wiped the tears from his face.

"Karl, are you okay?"

He hadn't heard anyone come in. Embarrassed, Helo slammed the locker shut, fumbling for a second to keep from dropping the sack. "Kara." Nobody else ever called him Karl. He turned to face her.

She nodded at the sack. "Boomer's stuff?"

"Yeah."

She blinked several times rapidly, her eyes wide as she fought her own tears and Helo thought of the photograph in his pocket. Boomer had been Kara's friend, too.

Kara took another step into the room, tossed a magazine to the foot of her rack. "Do you think her soul made it to wherever a Cylon soul goes?"

"I don't know." He let the sack slip gently to the floor. "Kara…" She dropped to her rack, focused those big, brown eyes on him. Her eyes looked as bruised as his had, reflected in that mirror. "Kara, she said something to me, a day or two ago."

Her eyes narrowed. "A day or two ago?"

"I visited her in the brig," he admitted.

"Before or after the trial?"

He leaned back against the lockers, banged his head once, knowing what she was going to say. "After."

"Not bright, Karl."

Helo shot her a lopsided, self-mocking grin. "When have you ever known me to be bright, Starbuck?" He noticed that she was looking at her hands, rubbing bruised knuckles. He frowned. "You in a fight?"

Raising an eyebrow, she gave him back his grin. "Yep. Over you. Seems there's a faction thinks you're a Cylon sympathizer. Now I know why."

He bit his lip, shook his head. "Doesn't matter. I know I'm not, you know, the Old Man knows."

"It does matter, Karl. The duty roster has you back in the cockpit of a Raptor. If your ECO, your wingmen don't trust you…"

He sighed. The damage had already been done and he couldn't bring himself to care enough, just then, to want to undo it. "She told me Sharon's been calling for me for days. That the Cylons have her and they'll kill her as soon as the baby's born."

"I thought Boomer didn't remember anything about being a Cylon."

"She didn't. I think her mind… fractured somehow. One minute I was talking to Boomer, saying goodbye. The next I was talking to a Cylon." He snorted. "Scared the hell out of me."

"Did she tell you anything else?"

"They're holding Sharon on Kobol, but there's a basestar on its way."

Her gaze sharpened. "Have you reported this?"

"No." His reply was little more than a whisper. He should have reported it right away, he knew. It had been a good day and a half since the Cylon had said it. But Commander Adama was still off the active duty roster, still recovering from his wounds, and he would have to go to Colonel Tigh with the information. Finally, he met Kara's eyes. "I don't trust Tigh."

"That makes two of us, but you have to report this."

"You're right. I know. It's just…"

"Karl, you are _not_ going to play hero and go down there to rescue her." When he didn't answer, she laughed and stretched out, her crossed arms pillowing her head. "You're a frakking moron, you know that?"

"There wasn't anything I could do for Boomer." The image of the life fading from Boomer's eyes stung. The thought of the life fading from Sharon's eyes, of that blonde Cylon taking their child… He couldn't let that happen. Sharon had protected him during their time on Caprica, she had kept him alive; he would have died that day in the woods at the hands of the one she called Six, if not for Sharon, engineered though her presence had been. It was his turn to give her something back, if he could.

"I can't just abandon her." He focused again on Kara. "I love her, Kara." It was the first time he had said it aloud. For that matter, it was the first time he had admitted it to himself.

She stared at him and he felt uncomfortable under her intense scrutiny. She mouthed a word – he thought it might have been the name of her dead fiancé, Zak – then, "You have to tell Tigh about the basestar." She sighed and closed her eyes. "He's got both of us under observation. Until that lifts, you can't go after her – he'd have you shot down."

Helo could practically see the gears turning in her mind. "What are you proposing?"

"That heavy Raider is close enough to a Raptor that they're going to want a Raptor pilot to handle it. They've got me going over her 'cause I have experience with Cylon ships." She opened her eyes again. "I'll see if I can get you assigned to her."

"It'll take weeks to figure that heavy Raider out…"

She nodded agreement. "And it'll probably take weeks before Tigh calls off the watchdogs, even if the Old Man were to return to active duty tomorrow." Her eyes sparkled with a reckless glint. "Plenty of time for us to figure a way to steal her."

xxx

Sharon slept. When she woke, she was still surrounded by darkness – cloying, consuming. The air smelled different, not the scent of water or of the bland food she had been given. Something else.

"Is someone here?"

There was no answer. She sat up, listening intently, trying to force her eyes to pick up the slightest glimmer of light, her ears to detect the tiniest whisper of sound. But there was nothing. It was as though she were wrapped in meters-thick cotton, nothing but the air she breathed able to penetrate it.

Drawing her knees up to her chin, Sharon wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her cheek on her knees. For the hundredth time at least, she wished that she had never tried to lead those Centurions from Helo and the other humans.

She thought of those humans, all save Starbuck people she had known only from her downloaded memories, not from experience. Galen Tyrol, the one her – predecessor? counterpart? – had instinctively chosen as a sort of protective camouflage while living among those who were her unknowing enemies. Commander Adama, the human who was perhaps the most dangerous to the Cylons. Gaius Baltar, the man Helo had given up his place for, unwittingly volunteering himself into the Cylon plans for the future.

Helo. How she wished he were here with her now, selfish though that wish was.

"I'm here, Sharon." Helo's voice was a whisper, shocking her to the depths of her soul.

"No, you can't be."

"Well, why the frak not? You're the one who wanted me to come here." Now he sounded more like the man with whom she had played Triad in her borrowed memories. "Don't you want me, Sharon?" There was teasing in his voice.

She didn't trust this. He couldn't be here. Her mind was playing tricks on her. If there was anything of reality to the sound of his voice, then it was some kind of recording fashioned by Six to torment her.

"Is Six the blonde?" he asked in response to Sharon's unspoken thoughts, curious. "Well, if you don't want me, I'm sure she'll be happy to—"

"Shut the frak up. You're not here." No more able to see now than she could five minutes before, Sharon looked up toward where the ceiling of the small chamber should be. "I'm not falling for it, Six. You can stop playing your little games."

In answer, the room flooded with light. Bright, painful light.

Sharon couldn't see a door, although she knew there had to be one. All she saw was Six, dressed in virginal white. Six, who stood in a corner of the featureless room, one hand held gracefully palm to wall, the usual predatory gleam in her blue eyes. She cocked her head to one side, stared at Sharon unblinking. Those intense eyes drifted from Sharon's face to her once flat stomach as though she could see beyond the barrier of Sharon's crossed arms and legs. Six licked her lips, smiled, and Sharon shuddered.

"Who were you talking to, Sharon? Your lover? He isn't here. You're quite alone." She trailed her fingers down the wall as she stepped away from it, toward Sharon. Step after slow, inexorable step, she stalked her helpless prey.

Six's attitude, rather than causing further distress, made Sharon angry. She smiled back at the blonde, the smile not reaching her eyes. "That's where you're wrong, Six." Her smile only widened as the other woman's eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. "I'm not alone." Sharon taunted Six, knowing it was a foolish thing to do. "I have my child here with me."

A chill ran down her spine when Six relaxed back into her previous rapacious stance. She brought out from behind her back a hypodermic needle. "That's quite true, _Sharon_, for now…"

xxx

When Helo arrived in the ready room – Gods, was this really his first mission brief in over three months? – several others were already there. Plenty of empty seats were available, one of which was next to Starbuck, so he headed that way. His own personal Marine guard took up a position to the left side of the door. Another guard was already stationed to the right; Helo figured that one belonged to Kara.

She rolled her head on the back of the chair to look at him as he dropped into the seat. "Damn, Starbuck, you look like crap." Or at least like she hadn't gotten much sleep.

Taking her sunglasses from the neckline of her tanks and placing them carefully over her eyes, she pantomimed a kiss at him and said, "I love you, too, Raptor Boy."

Helo laughed and relaxed into his chair, stretching his arms out over the backs of the two to either side. Kara leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder. Her hair was damp and smelled of shampoo.

A third Marine walked down the side aisle past Helo and Kara as the CAG stepped up to the podium. The first thing Adama seemed to focus on was Kara's head on Helo's shoulder, the second the dark glasses she wore. Helo felt it when Kara broke into a smirk, but her head remained on his shoulder and the glasses remained over her eyes.

"We have reason to believe that a Cylon baseship is headed toward Kobol," Adama began. Kara pounded Helo's thigh once with her fist, acknowledging that he had gone to Tigh, after all. "It may arrive any day and we're still too close to the planet, so we have to be ready for that possibility." Adama stopped talking and looked around the room, pausing for an instant on each face. "There are several new crew assignments, so pay attention," he continued, consulting the printed roster in his hands. "Lt. Agathon, you are assigned as pilot to Raptor 386. Lt. Pindar, you're Agathon's ECO. Ensign Shakri, you're on the CAP; you and Costanza will act as wingmen to Lt. Thrace…"

The rest of the assignments meant nothing to Helo, so he tuned Adama out. A wave of nostalgia coursed through him as he recalled the last time he had been here. It had been Ripper giving out the assignments and Adama was just a visitor flying with them for the decommissioning ceremony. Boomer had sat next to him and the room had been so crowded with pilots that a few had to listen from outside the door.

Now Ripper and Boomer and so many others he had known were dead while he made plans to steal a ship and become a deserter, both criminal actions, so that he could infiltrate an enemy stronghold and play hero. So that he could attempt to rescue the woman he loved and the child she carried. His child.

Kara was right – he was a frakking moron.

That heavy Raider was designed for use by the bio-Cylons and Kara thought that it was a design that included elements of both the Raider she had taken and Colonial Raptors. Between the two of them, he and she ought to be able to determine how the damn thing worked. He prayed that it wouldn't be too late, since it seemed the fleet was about to leave Kobol's system, and every jump they made would make it that much harder for him to find Sharon.

Helo's awareness was brought back to the briefing when Kara shifted, pulling away from him. Leaning forward, eyes still hidden behind the dark glasses, Kara smirked at the CAG. "So Apollo. You've had some time to work out the kinks… How _do_ I fit in the cockpit with my watchdog? Sit on his lap? 'Cause that could be fun." There were several snickers from around the ready room. "But what if I grab the wrong stick?"

Helo smacked Kara in the back of the head, eliciting a glare from her. He thought it was a glare, anyway, since he couldn't see through the glasses.

Apollo rolled his eyes eloquently. "You're just a laugh a minute, Starbuck," he tossed at her, shaking his head, lips half-quirked in a faint smile. "All right, that's it. Dismissed. Good hunting."

xxx

Ice and fire warred in Sharon's veins; she felt nothing but the pain. Whatever Six had injected into her burned through her body, leaving nothing in its wake but frozen ash, cinders.

She whimpered, but as time passed and the pain increased, she began to scream. As she had in her dreams, Sharon screamed his name over and over again. When she no longer had the strength to scream, she still called for him. Not as frantic, but just as desperate. Helo's name became the only prayer she knew.

Six had won.

TO BE CONTINUED… 


	2. Chapter 2

He paused on the shore of the river of time and watched as it flowed past, inexorable and oblivious. Observed the ripples here and there that disturbed its flow. Ripples caused by his fellow Cylons. – _This has happened before and it will happen again._ – Ripples caused by the humans. – _Sooner or later the day comes when you can't hide from what you've done._

It amused him to think of himself by the name he had used among those humans. The most-recent holder of that name had passed his consciousness on to him weeks before, along with memories of the one called Starbuck and another who Starbuck had called Madame President.

The other Cylons might not believe it, but he knew names had power. He thought of the one who called herself Sharon. When she had thought of herself as one among many, differentiated from the other models only by a number designation, she had done as she was told. But once she had been contaminated by humanity, had begun to think and act for herself, she had changed.

Just as he had changed.

xxx

Helo lay in his rack, sucking absently on a lollipop, and stared at the photo he'd brought away from Boomer's locker. It had been almost a week since he'd been back, three days since the execution, and still nothing felt right. The deck crew for the most part were polite but distant, while the other pilots and ECOs all seemed to go out of their way to include him in whatever happened to be going on. It was getting irritating – all he wanted was to be left alone, allowed to adjust to life aboard ship again, life interacting with other people.

Shifting the sucker in his mouth, he sighed. The truth was that all he really wanted was Sharon. Every moment that passed took them farther away from each other, but his own words to her had put an even greater distance between them, long before they had parted on Kobol.

_ Sharon was a friend of mine. You're not Sharon._

_You… You have software._

_ Whatever twisted thing you are…_

_ …I'm gonna blow your head off._

The worst of it was that he had actually shot her. In a moment of blistering panic, he had put a bullet into her shoulder, but in the end he hadn't been able to kill her. Had, in fact, stopped the bleeding and patched her up, even going so far as to sacrifice some ammunition for the gunpowder, using it and flame to cauterize her wound. To prevent her death.

_Gods…_ Helo forced his mind to other things.

He still hadn't been assigned to the heavy Raider and without that ship, there was no way he'd be able to find the basestar. Frak it. Maybe he should just ask outright to be assigned to it – the idea wasn't the craziest, considering its similarity in design to the Raptors. But he knew that even if Apollo didn't object, Tigh would. When Tigh looked at Helo, he saw the man who had been partnered with the Cylon who had tried to kill his commanding officer, his friend. In Tigh's mind, Helo was guilty by association.

"May I come in?"

Commander Adama's voice made Helo jump. It was so completely out of context and yet so totally in tune with what he had been thinking about that Helo acted on pure reflex. He narrowly avoided knocking himself out on the rack over his as he scrambled to stand. His bare feet hit the floor, his right hand rose in a salute, his left connected with the ladder leading to the rack above and sent the photograph flying. Embarrassed, Helo bit down hard on the stem of his lollipop.

"The guard knocked, but you must not have heard." Adama's voice was amused as he returned Helo's frakked up salute, but his face didn't show it. Helo thanked the Gods the Old Man had never asked to sit in on one of their Triad games. "Relax, son, this is an informal visit."

Helo forced his muscles to loosen. His eyes fell on the photo, the four smiling faces staring up at them from the deck. Before he could move to retrieve it, Adama bent with slow and deliberate motion. Careful as he was, pain asserted its presence in a fleeting wince as he began to straighten.

"Sir, are you all right? Maybe you should sit down…"

Light reflected from the lenses of Adama's glasses as he looked up from the photograph, his expression unreadable. With a lingering look at the glossy reminder of what had been lost, he handed the snapshot back to Helo. "It must be strange for you, being home again."

_Home. Such a simple word_, Helo thought as he looked again at the picture, at the moment in time that seemed centuries past. He didn't _feel_ like he was home. In fact, he'd never felt so out of place in his life. The Galactica had been his home once, but the Cylons had taken that away along with his family on Tauron.

He thought of home and the only thing that came to mind was Sharon. Her smile. The way her eyes flashed when she was angry. The resolve in her face when he'd last seen her, determined to protect him again, as she'd protected him so many times before. Unconsciously, he brushed his fingertips lightly over the image of Boomer. "But I'm not home, Commander." His voice was low, barely above a whisper. He glanced at Adama. "I don't know where home is anymore."

Helo didn't know what Adama saw; all he knew was that he wasn't trying to hide anything from the Old Man. Not that he could have if he'd wanted to – Adama knew his crew, made it a point to know them. It was one of the things that made him such an effective leader.

Taking hold of the ladder attached to the rack across from Helo's, Adama lowered himself cautiously to the thin mattress. He gestured for Helo to sit. "It'll take some time to adjust, Lieutenant. The XO tells me you've been through a hell of an ordeal." That surprised him. Helo had to wonder what Tigh had said, wonder how much it might have been colored by the Colonel's attitude and stress level. Unlike the Old Man, Tigh was never meant to be a leader. "I'm just glad that I have one of my experienced officers back on the duty roster. We've lost so many…"

Belatedly, Helo realized he was towering over Adama and dropped back down to his rack. He shifted his lollipop again – it was almost gone. Changing gears a bit, he said, "Starbuck told me that there're only about 50,000 of us left."

Adama shook his head. "Fewer than that. Speaking of Starbuck, where is she?"

"The rec room playing Triad. Where else?" He grinned. "I didn't feel like getting my ass kicked by her again, so…" He gestured, encompassing the officers' quarters.

With a short bark of laughter, Adama said, "From what I've been hearing the last couple of days, you two are all but joined at the hip." He smiled as he continued, "I came by to see if it was true that you and Starbuck were conspiring to turn the fleet over to the Cylons."

Helo froze, shocked to his core. He felt the blood drain from his face and was glad he sat already, because otherwise he would've fallen. "Sir, I—"

Adama's smile widened and Helo realized that the man was teasing him. "Gods help us all if that were true, son, the way pilots stick together."

With that, Helo could breathe again. Adama's subtle humor helped him come to a decision he had been wrestling with since his debriefing with the XO. "Commander…"

His expression curious, Adama focused his attention completely on Helo.

Helo took a deep breath and forged ahead. "Sir, I… left something out of my report to Colonel Tigh." His eyes met Adama's.

"Go on."

"It's about the bio-Cylons." He pulled the stick from his mouth and swallowed hard, then, "The bio-Cylons aren't just machines, Commander. They're more like us than you know."

"I see. You know this because of your time with the other Lieutenant Valerii."

"Yes, sir." Helo didn't know how to put it other than bluntly. "She's pregnant."

For the first time in the two years Helo had been assigned to Galactica, he saw Commander Adama at a momentary loss for words. Unsurprisingly, he recovered quickly. "That is significant. Yours?"

Releasing the inside of his cheek from between his teeth, Helo nodded. "Yes, sir, but there's more." His gaze still held Adama's. "The last thing Sharon said before she led the toasters away from us was that she loved me."

Adama frowned. "Do you believe that?"

Again Helo nodded. "I do, Commander." Absently weaving the partially chewed stick back and forth between the fingers of his right hand, Helo saw again the intensity in Sharon's eyes when she had said that, willing him to believe her.

He poked his tongue into his cheek as an earlier conversation – one from the day they had found Delphi – echoed in his head. Replaying that conversation in his mind, he heard in her voice what he should have heard then: nervousness, trepidation, fear. Her voice had held the timbre of someone who had something to say but was reluctant because of how it would be received. "The bio-Cylons are capable of complex emotions. Love. Fear. Jealousy. Loyalty…" Again his eyes met the Commander's. _Forgive me, Sharon._ "I think we may be able to use that against them."

The Old Man chewed on that for a moment before stiffly maneuvering to his feet. Taking a step toward Helo, he gripped the younger man's shoulder, effectively preventing him from standing. "We'll talk again." Adama walked from the room, deep in thought, absently saluting Helo's guard as he left the officers' quarters.

xxx

Where before all had been darkness, now it was constant light. Sharon's captors had been playing with her senses for so long that she no longer had any concept of how much time had passed since she had been cut from the system.

Sitting in the center of the too-bright cell, she rocked back and forth, felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her abdomen that subsided just as quickly as it had manifested. At first she had no idea what it was – the morning sickness had passed before they had put down on Kobol; even so, that had never been painful. She realized, when it happened again, that what she felt was the baby kicking. But it was too early in her pregnancy for that.

And then she knew.

The fiery pain Six had given her had passed. In its wake Sharon felt stretched thin, stretched until she was transparent, stretched almost to breaking. She knew with a terrifying certainty that Six had injected her with something to speed up the pregnancy, to make her child develop more rapidly than nature would allow. For the others to have permitted Six to so interfere, they must have decided that the benefits outweighed the potential costs.

That explained the weakness she felt, the constant hunger, the feeling of being drained. Her baby was taking everything she had. Closing her eyes, Sharon prayed for strength.

"Do you really think that'll help?" Helo's tone was inquisitive.

She didn't bother to open her eyes – she knew there was no one else in the room with her. "Leave me alone." He was like a ghost sent to torment her. She still wasn't convinced that he wasn't a recording to keep her off balance, to keep her from planning a way to escape.

"You're weak as a kitten, Sharon. How do you think you're going to escape if you can't even stand on your own?"

"Why are you doing this?" There was no answer. The ghost was right, though. She didn't have a hope of escape if she was so weak that she couldn't function. With a groan at the effort she had to expend to get it done, Sharon struggled to her feet, forcing herself first to her hands and knees, taking it one step at a time.

When finally she had succeeded in standing, her muscles quivering, she heard a sound. Twisting her head to look over her shoulder, she saw that part of one wall seemed to have disappeared and another copy of herself walked through the resulting opening. Dressed in black trousers and white tunic, her hair loose, she held a blue bundle in the crook of one arm.

The Valerii model marched up to Sharon and held out the bundle for her to take. She stared at it, but didn't accept it. "Take it, Sharon. Get dressed. A baseship will be here soon to take us home."

"Home…" Sharon took the blue bundle and shook it out to reveal a shapeless dress. She met her own eyes with a momentary feeling of vertigo. Attempting to lift the dress over her head, she discovered that she truly was as weak as her imaginary Helo had said. The other took it from her and literally dressed her as though she were a child. The heavy fabric fell to just below her knees.

Valerii turned to leave. Having no alternative way to learn what had happened since she'd been taken, Sharon couldn't stop herself. She put out a hand, touched the other's wrist. "What's happening? Did the humans escape? Did they return to their fleet?" _Is Helo safe?_

Dark eyes dropped to the hand at her wrist. Valerii didn't answer as she easily broke away from Sharon's weak grasp, strode away from her to the open doorway through which Sharon saw only an empty corridor. As the other disappeared through the opening, Sharon instinctively took a step toward it and then another. Before she reached it, the model the humans knew as Doral appeared, blocking her way.

"Going somewhere, Sharon?" He smiled thinly at her, reached out to grip both sides of the entryway, his reddish jacket gaping open to reveal the black shirt beneath. The smile didn't reach his eyes.

Again with the vertigo, this time caused by the appearance of her own personal ghost, right there beside Doral. Helo wore tanks and trousers, no shoes or socks, and sucked on a lollipop – she had never seen him like this before and thought that it must be another product of borrowed memories. He stood calmly between Doral and Sharon, hands on his hips, a silent observer.

Sharon blinked twice, hard, but Helo was still there. Ignoring her hallucination, Sharon addressed Doral. "Why am I being treated like this?" Always before he had been sympathetic, willing to consider her point of view – she hoped to appeal to that now.

Doral cocked his head to the side. "Treated like what, Sharon? Like a traitor? Like the enemy?" His reply dashed her feeble hope. He pushed himself the rest of the way into the room, walking right through Helo as though he weren't there – which, of course, he wasn't – one hand trailing over a section of wall as the opening disappeared. "Like a human?" She tried to note the path Doral's hand took, but the wall – like the rest of the room – was featureless. He stepped closer to her and involuntarily she backed up. "You could return to us, Sharon, resume your place in the system. Save yourself from your just punishment, if you repent of your sins."

She no longer saw Helo, but she felt him behind her, not touching, but there. She hadn't seen him move, only sensed his presence. Dizzy, Sharon felt the room lurch around her. "My sins…?" she repeated, licked suddenly dry lips.

Doral was close enough that she could almost feel the life, the energy buzzing within him. "You tried to steal our future, Sharon." His gaze drifted down to her hands as she brought them to the swell of her growing child in an unconscious and vain attempt to protect it. He was so close that her wrist brushed against the coarse fabric of his jacket. She backed up another step, found she could go no further – Helo was there. He gently placed his hands on her shoulders as Doral continued, "You tried to take both the child and the father. You've denied God's will in favor of your own."

Near mesmerized by the tone of his voice, the intensity of his gaze, Sharon could only shake her head in denial. It couldn't be God's will to give her child over to the others, to separate it from either herself or Helo.

She felt his breath as Helo whispered in her ear, "A child belongs with its parents, not the foster family from hell." Sharon shivered.

"You of all of us should know God's will in this, Sharon. Just as Helo was chosen as the father, you were chosen by God as the mother." Doral studied her, his gaze drifting across her face, looking for something. "And yet you throw God's favor to the wind. Six calls you weak, Sharon, but I know she's wrong. I believe you have the strength to do what you know is right, to fulfill God's purpose. But you must repent."

"I haven't done anything w-wrong." She stumbled over her words as Helo gently brushed her hair aside, kissed her neck.

Doral shook his head, laughed softly. "The humans must be destroyed, Sharon, you know that. It's God's will."

"Who the frak is Aaron Doral to decide what is or isn't God's will?" Helo asked as he slid his arms around her, rested his chin on her right shoulder.

"But what if that _isn't_ God's will at all?" There was more she wanted to say, but the baby kicked, restless, agitated. It took her breath away. Between the baby and the ghost of its father, she was finding it increasingly difficult to think.

"And that's why you must be punished. You are misguided, Sharon. You have strayed from the path." Changing tactics, he asked, "How does it feel to be alone?" His tone was plain curiosity, as though they made small talk at a party.

Helo's arms tightened, one hand resting on her stomach. "I'm not—"

"Ah, yes, your baby." Again Doral smiled widely, reminding her unpleasantly of Six. He closed the space that had developed between them and Sharon forced herself to stand her ground. It helped, having Helo there with her, even if he was only an hallucination.

Doral reached out, stroked a hand lightly over her belly. Sharon closed her eyes, not wanting to watch as his hand went through Helo's as through vapor, destroying the comforting illusion. "Cling to it now, Sharon. This is all you'll have. You're quite alone. Even your human has abandoned you."

Her knees felt weak, but she locked them, not willing to give up anything to him. _Helo…_

"Don't listen to him, Sharon." But she couldn't see him anymore, couldn't feel him; in the space of a handful of seconds, he had become a bodiless voice.

By force of will, Sharon held herself steady, refused to rise to Doral's baiting, and so he continued, "Lieutenant Valerii on Galactica has been executed. Your lover was responsible for the humans' decision."

As Doral turned his back on her, as he left her there, her vision began to fade, a white noise grew louder in her ears and she felt her knees finally give way.

xxx

_"He's hot on my tail!"_ Hot Dog's tone was just short of panic as Helo watched the Mark II maneuver, flying surprisingly intricate evasive patterns for such an inexperienced pilot, but the Raider stayed right there with him.

_"Hang on, Hot Dog, I'll be there as soon as I can,"_ came Starbuck's voice over the wireless, but Helo could see from his vantage on the fringes of the fight that she had her own troubles. Not one of the Vipers was free of a Cylon shadow and several – including Starbuck – had two or three.

He turned his head a little, until he could see Racetrack in the periphery of his vision. "Racetrack, can you launch one of our decoys, get that bastard off Hot Dog's ass?"

"We only have two left."

The forward ships of the fleet had stumbled into a hive of Raiders half an hour ago, the vanguard of a Cylon baseship. No doubt the one Boomer had told him was coming for Sharon. The ready fighters had scrambled, Helo and Racetrack with them, but they had been so badly outnumbered that Racetrack had shot off almost all of their physical countermeasures early in the game.

"Do it." He reached out to switch his monitor to another view. "Hot Dog, Helo. Get ready to duck." This would leave them with only one decoy, but they had other options, if it became necessary. "Now."

There was a split-second delay and then he watched as the silver drone Racetrack released sped toward Hot Dog's Viper. Hot Dog pulled his bird up into a vertical climb as the drone shot past, sending out bursts of code to confound the Raider's targeting system.

_"It didn't work!"_ A little closer to panic as the Raider stuck to him like a leech.

"Frak." Helo pounded his fist once on his thigh in frustration.

"It's my fault, isn't it? I waited too long."

"You did fine, Racetrack. The damn things just don't always work." He chewed at his bottom lip as he watched the telemetry figures scroll across his monitor. No one else was in a position to help Hot Dog. Helo directed his gaze through the view port, focused on the Raider. Hot Dog shot at and destroyed a second Raider that had moved into position to catch his Viper in a deadly crossfire, even as he continued to evade the ordnance the toaster on his ass threw at him.

In his head, the image of another Raider over a cloud-covered planet was juxtaposed with the here and now and he heard Sharon's voice as she told him of a safety net the bio-Cylons had programmed into the Raiders' computer systems.

"Racetrack. Switch to frequency five-five-zero."

"Five-five-zero, sir? It's not a valid frequency. Nobody uses it."

He continued to stare at the Raider, the tracers issuing from its guns. "The Cylons do." It was the frequency Sharon had given him when they had broken away from Caprica. They hadn't been able to shake the Raiders then, either, and Sharon had provided a code to use on that frequency that would momentarily disable the Raiders' navigational systems. It had only lasted a couple of seconds, but it had been enough for Starbuck to break out and he thought it might be enough for Hot Dog.

"Frequency five-five-zero." Racetrack confirmed the change.

"Enter code delta-gamma-two-seven-six-omega."

Racetrack's fingers flew over her keyboard. Through the view screen, Helo saw that the battle was finally starting to turn in their favor, at least for everyone but Hot Dog. Then the Raider seemed to stutter in its course, drift for just a second. "Hot Dog, get outta there!"

_"Don't have to tell me twice!"_ The Mark II shot away, almost immediately circling around as the Raider regained control. But it was too late. The Cylon fighter exploded in a beautiful display of fireworks as Hot Dog flew through the corona of the explosion. _"Yeah!"_

Helo smiled. "Nice shooting, Hot Dog." The chaos of battle continued to swirl as a blinking telltale on his console caught Helo's attention. He looked up and saw more information scrolling across his monitor, but none of it was Colonial code. "Hey, Racetrack, you seeing this?"

"Yeah. What is it?"

"I don't know. Are you recording it?" It had to be Cylon code coming in on that normally unused frequency.

"I am now."

Before they could do anything else, the call came in from Galactica to return to base. Another wave of Raiders was headed their way and the rest of the fleet had already made the jump to safety. It was time to go.

The telltale blinked its warning of an incoming transmission for another full minute as Helo took the Raptor back to Galactica, bringing up the rear of the squadron. He counted Vipers as he approached, saw that although a couple of them seemed to be damaged, they returned with the same number of birds they'd had when they left.

For a change, the Lords of Kobol had been good to them.

Once the Raptor had come to a full stop and Helo had reported in, he felt the brief disorientation of Galactica's jump to rejoin the rest of the fleet.

He reached up to remove his helmet, then popped the hatch. Behind him, Racetrack set her helmet on the floor beside her as she took up her clipboard and began the post-flight check. Helo shot her a lopsided smile and said, "Hey, why don't you let me take care of that? You go check in with Hot Dog, make sure he's okay." He laughed at her as she blushed to the roots of her hair. _Right on target_, he thought.

"You sure? It won't take that long…"

"No, it won't, even if I'm the only one doing it. Now go."

She started down the ramp, but then popped her head back in to say, "Helo, I know it sounds kinda weird, but I really enjoyed flying with you today."

Her words echoed Boomer's after their very first flight together and he laughed. "Ah, you rooks all say the same thing," he said, shooing her away. His smile faded as she disappeared, long tail of dark hair swinging with her footsteps. Helo couldn't count all the times he'd seen the same thing when he and Boomer had returned from a mission and she had gone to find the Chief, leaving him to do post-flight.

Wishing for a sucker, he closed his eyes and counted to ten to make sure she didn't come back again before going over to the ECO station. It only took him a couple of minutes to record that Cylon transmission and pop the chip out, slipping it into his pocket. He'd have to tell the CAG about it, but he didn't intend to give up access to something that might lead him to Sharon, when the time came.

Finished with his breach of security, he quickly went through the formality of the post-flight. It didn't take long – not much longer than stealing the data from the Cylon transmission.

xxx

She was here – he could feel it. And that meant that the human would be here soon as well, to take her and their child away from the others. The others, who had brought her aboard the baseship and were even now transporting her to a cell, carrying her because she no longer had the strength to walk, or even stand. If the fools weren't careful, she might die before the child could be born, could survive outside its mother's womb.

He had no intention of allowing that to happen, for it was his place to prepare the way, to set God's plan in motion.

It was not yet her time to die.

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Chapter 3

Sharon shifted restlessly, unable to get comfortable. The shelf/bed on which she lay seemed to be alive, possessing an internal warmth all its own. Like the walls, the floor, the chair, the entire room – all had been grown from the semi-organic material of the basestar as needed by its inhabitants. If she ever escaped this place, Sharon never wanted to see dark pink again.

Her back ached abominably and she wanted to stand, to walk a bit to ease the strain, but she couldn't. Her pregnancy had progressed at an alarming rate, her child growing in a matter of days to the point where Sharon thought he or she must be born at any time. She felt as though she were the size of a Raptor, but she was so weak.

For the dozenth time since she had been brought aboard the basestar, Sharon felt despair threaten to overwhelm her, felt tears begin to seep from the corners of her eyes. She blinked rapidly in an attempt stop them, but they wouldn't be swayed.

"Sharon?" There was concern in Helo's voice as he wiped away the tears with his thumb. She felt his touch on her face, but she knew he wasn't there. "Sharon, I _am_ here; you're keeping me here."

She couldn't fight it anymore. Hallucination or not, she was terrified and as alone as she had ever been. She needed Helo more than she had thought possible, needed him to lend her some of his strength. Opening her eyes, she focused on his face, reached out to stroke his cheek and was surprised when she felt light stubble there.

"You've got to let me go, Sharon. I'm only here because of you."

"No, you can't be here – I left you on Kobol. I left so you could escape, so you'd be safe."

He drew her hand away from his face and pressed it against his chest – she felt the fabric of his tanks, the beat of his heart. "I know you did. But I'm not safe, Sharon, and I won't be until you let me go."

"I only wanted to protect you." She heard the childish whine in her voice and hated it.

"Hush. I know." Helo brought her hand up to his mouth, kissed her fingertips. "The best way for you to protect me, if that's really what you want, is to let me go home, back to Galactica. I can't stay with you, Sharon. You're a Cylon. You and I, we don't belong together. Even if I wanted to settle down with just one woman, it'd be someone like me, someone human." Even as she closed her eyes against his words, words that cut, she couldn't stop the sensations that ran through her when he laid his hand on their baby. Nor could she stop the baby from kicking at that hand. "I never wanted this responsibility. I'm not cut out to be a father, Sharon."

Ready to deny his words, Sharon opened her eyes to look at him. Instead of Helo, the man whose hand rested on her stomach, who felt the kick of her child, was another of her own kind. A Cylon male, blond hair and gray eyes. She had seen him before, but not for a very long time.

He smiled at her. "Call me Leoben." He watched reverently as a ripple flowed under his palm through the muscles of her stomach. His eyes met hers as he continued, "I'll do everything I can to help you."

"I don't believe you."

His smile widened. "I know you don't, Sharon. But that doesn't change what will be. Your Helo will be here soon. He'll take you away to a place that's being prepared for you among the humans. A place where you and this child will be safe."

She tried to brush him away, but her efforts were so weak that a fly wouldn't have felt threatened, let alone a healthy Cylon. "Go away," she whispered, and then, louder, "You can't make me believe this, Six, anymore than I believe Helo has been here or that he's coming."

Leoben looked sorrowful as he pulled up the coverlet, tucking her into the living bed as though she were a child. But he wasn't really there, just as Helo had never really been there. Nothing was real, except the fact that her baby would be coming soon and that she couldn't stop the Cylons from taking it.

"Number Six has nothing to do with my presence here, Sharon. I'm here for you, the mother of the next generation, and for your child. You must be strong, for this child…" The one who called himself Leoben gently stroked her stomach. "…and for the future of us all."

xxx

"Try it now!" Helo called to Private Mondav as he made a new connection between two wires. The Marine was in the cockpit of the heavy Raider, helping Helo to recalibrate the communications system to Colonial specifications, having volunteered to help from sheer boredom – and maybe more than just a passing interest in Kara. The man wasn't much on the technical side of things, but he made a decent enough assistant, following Helo's or Kara's direction.

Several of the Raider's systems had been damaged during their escape from Caprica and then from Kobol. Helo grinned as he thought about just how hard he and Kara seemed to be on vehicles, recalling a transport that had belonged to the Caprican resistance. They had smashed it up pretty thoroughly.

"It sounds like it's working, Lieutenant!" Mondav's reply was muffled by distance and insulated bulkheads.

Helo reached up to wipe sweat from his forehead, preventing a trickle from reaching his eye. Slipping a wire stripper into a pocket, he secured the new connection by twisting a plastic nut onto the ragged ends. As he pushed the newly connected wires back into their compartment, someone kicked the sole of his left boot, the only part of him that extended from beneath the console on which he worked.

Thinking it was either Mondav or Kara – the only other two inside the Raider – he ordered, "Cut it out, man." Grabbing hold of a support, he pulled himself out from the tangle of wires.

"Sorry, sir," Chief Tyrol said, "but we're closing up shop. Shift's over." There was a glint in Tyrol's eye beyond the bruising and puffiness; Helo couldn't decide whether it was genuine humor or subtle mockery. Today he'd gotten both in about equal measure from the Chief, which was a distinct improvement over the previous cool courtesy that had concealed contempt.

Helo and Tyrol had, he thought, come to an understanding over the roles they had played in Boomer's subversive activities and her subsequent destruction. An understanding evidenced by Helo's sore jaw and knuckles and the Chief's black eye. They would never be friends, exactly, but at least they could work together now without sniping at each other.

Levering himself up onto his elbows, Helo said, "If it's all right with you, Chief, I'm on a roll here." Tyrol was technically in charge of all work done on the Raider, even though Helo outranked him. "I'd like to stay and continue working on the comms system." And, if the Gods were smiling on him, Kara would also be staying behind to work on the navigation system, as she had been doing for the past several hours, and they would get a chance to work out the wrinkles in their plan.

Tyrol frowned. "Sure, Lieutenant." His gaze drifted toward the cockpit, where Kara and Mondav had been working on their separate projects. "We got the engines back on line, but Lieutenant Thrace is still working on the nav comp. The sooner we can get this bird in the air, the better off we'll be." He sketched a salute, then wheeled around to leave as soon as Helo half-heartedly returned it.

A moment later, Helo heard someone outside the heavy Raider say, "You're just leaving him in there, Chief? Don't you think he'll…?"

"Don't I think he'll what, Purcell?"

The Chief's tone should have warned Purcell to stop there, but he didn't pick up on it. "Do something to alert the Cylons to our location."

"And why would he do that, Purcell?"

"You've said it yourself, Chief. He's a Cylon sympathizer."

Quite interested in what Tyrol might have to say on that subject, Helo maneuvered a little closer to the entryway. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Kara and Mondav, too, had heard the exchange and were listening just as intently.

"Deckhand Purcell, you're speaking of an officer in the Colonial Fleet. I may have said some things in anger that shouldn't have been said, but that's between me and Lieutenant Agathon." From the angle of Tyrol's head, Helo thought he might be playing more to his audience inside the Raider than to the deckhand. "Don't you have anything better to do, Purcell?"

"No, Chief. I mean yes, Chief."

"Get outta here." Tyrol waved him off and then took his own advice, heading out of the hangar toward the galley.

"What a load of shit." The sentiment didn't surprise Helo nearly as much as the source. He more or less expected it from Kara, but it was Mondav who had said it. Helo looked over his shoulder at Mondav, standing close to Kara, who also looked at the Marine curiously. Mondav shrugged. "You're about as much a Cylon sympathizer as Commander Adama, sir."

Helo snorted. "Thanks." He rapped on the bulkhead twice, lightly, with his fist. "No, I'm not a sympathizer." _Not unless being in love with a particular Cylon qualifies me as one._ He turned back to the comm console, didn't notice when Kara and Mondav returned to the cockpit.

xxx

As he snapped a cover back into place, Helo sensed a presence nearby and looked up to see Mondav standing next to him. He realized that he had been working on tweaking the system for a good half hour and had become completely absorbed in the work. "What's up?"

"Kara asked me to bring her something to drink – 'something interesting,' as she put it." The Marine smiled. "You want anything?"

Helo sat back, leaning his shoulders against the bulkhead. _So it's Kara now…_ "Aren't you afraid to leave a couple of desperate characters like us alone?"

Mondav laughed. "I probably should be. Do you give me your word you won't steal the ship?"

_If you only knew_, Helo thought. Aloud he said, "Absolutely. I have no immediate plans to steal this ship."

Mondav's eyes narrowed. "Maybe I _shouldn't_ leave you and Lieutenant Thrace alone."

"That reminds me, where's Hicks?" As the days passed, their guards had become more and more relaxed, more trusting of their charges, but for Hicks to be absent from his post for hours and for Mondav to be willing to leave Kara and himself completely alone…

"He hurt himself playing hammerball last night. Whatever he did, it got worse so he went to see Doc Cottle a couple hours ago." Mondav looked conflicted. After a short internal struggle, he said, "You're probably right, sir, I shouldn't leave you alone…"

_Damn._ "You could always lock us in," Helo suggested.

"Yeah, but who knows what kind of trouble you two could get into, locked in here alone."

Helo played the opening Mondav had just given him, trying to salvage the situation. "Well, Private, what would _you_ do, locked into a confined space with a beautiful woman?"

Mondav shook his head. A smirk twisted his lips as he shuffled through the compartments on his utility belt until he came up with a magnetic lock, holding it up for Helo to see. "I'll be back in half an hour, sir."

"Works for me."

Mondav disappeared through the open hatch, closing it behind him. There was a faint whine as the mag lock was activated on the other side, locking Helo and Kara into the heavy Raider while their remaining Marine guard ran off to fetch Kara a drink. Helo shook his head in amazement.

"You almost blew that one, genius."

He turned to Kara, who leaned in the opening to the cockpit, arms crossed beneath her breasts. "Frak you, Thrace. We have half an hour." He gestured for Kara to precede him to the pilot's station and followed her as he pulled the Cylon data chip from his pocket. "Did you hear Tyrol say her engines are back online?" he asked as Kara dropped into the pilot's chair.

"I did. Have you had a chance to decode your chip yet?" She patted down her pockets and Helo knew she was looking for a cigar.

Helo reached into his own pocket and pulled out a lollipop, tossing it to her. "No smoking on my ship."

Kara arched a brow. "Your ship? I believe I'm the one who flew her from Caprica…" she mocked as she unwrapped the candy.

Helo stuck his tongue out at her as he slid the data chip into the slot on the main communication console, ignoring her laughing, "Anytime, Karl." Making sure the Raider's comm system remained isolated from Galactica – the whole point of rerouting connections even as he complied with orders and hooked her into the Colonial system – he initiated the translation program.

xxx

As he had told Sharon, a safe place was being prepared for her and the child. It was not yet ready, but Leoben was certain that it would be by the time it was needed. He was equally certain that it wouldn't be long, now – he would know it as soon Helo made his break from the human fleet.

The pieces slowly shifted into their pre-ordained pattern. The Progenitors would soon be reunited and their Child born. The Protector was in place aboard Galactica, awaiting their arrival. Both the Protector and another of Leoben's own model worked toward gaining the Child and the Progenitors acceptance among the humans, worked on changing the attitude of the Soldier, without whose support Mother, Father, and Child would not survive.

Leoben bowed his head, prayed that he would be sufficient to see this through.

xxx

Based on the intel they had picked up from the chip a few hours earlier, Helo was busy faking orders for an 0600 test launch of the heavy Raider while Kara programmed an intercept course. Once the fake orders were entered, he would work on getting the ship fueled for the "test" flight.

Helo found it hard to believe that the time was really here, that he would be leaving in just a couple of hours, heading into the unknown. It wasn't too late, yet, for him to turn back from this course of action, to just let Sharon go, but he couldn't. He couldn't do that to her and the baby; he couldn't do that to himself. They were his family. He had accepted that and now that the time had come, he felt lighter, somehow. It was a cliché, he knew, but he felt as though a great weight had been lifted. He didn't even believe that this wild scheme he and Kara had concocted would succeed, but at least he was doing something.

Kara wheeled around in the pilot's chair, a smug look on her face. "Program complete. We're taking this baby deep into Cylon territory. You up for it?"

There was a look of excitement in Kara's eyes, the kind of self-destructive look that she always got when she was planning to do something she knew might cause irreparable damage to her relationships with others, particularly the Old Man. Helo knew just how important Commander Adama was to Kara. And after being locked with her in this very ship, he thought he knew how important Lee Adama's opinion was to her as well. A memory replayed in his mind.

_The sound of the mag lock being deactivated drifted up to the cockpit, where they were just finishing programming the basestar's flight plan into the heavy Raider's navigational system._

_"Shit," Kara said, then, "Helo. Kiss me."_

_"What?"_

_"I said kiss me. It's what Mondav's expecting to find." When he just looked at her, she said, "It's not as if it's the first time. If it helps, pretend I'm Sharon."_

_He pulled her up against him as the door opened, Mondav whistling tunelessly to let them know he was returning, and teased, "Just like you'll pretend I'm Lee Adama?"_

_Kara opened her mouth to say something cutting and Helo took advantage of that just as Mondav walked in. The Marine suspected nothing of what they had really been doing while he was gone. He shot Helo a look of pure jealousy when he handed him a bottle of beer and Kara laughed, not unkindly, and took her own bottle._

The three of them had drunk their beers, talked a bit about what was happening back on Caprica and how likely it was that there was a resistance movement on any of the other Colonies. Then they left, returning to quarters.

And now it seemed that Kara had every intention of coming with him. Helo was certain that he could never return to Galactica if he left now, taking with him a ship that was a damn near priceless military asset, deserting his post during time of war. If Kara went with him, there would be no turning back for her either.

He couldn't allow that to happen.

Was he up for it? Without responding to Kara with anything more than a quick grin, Helo hit the key that sent the launch orders to Galactica's roster and quickly entered the fueling order, set for 0530 – anything earlier might arouse suspicion.

Kara would never allow him to just leave her behind – not given what they had gone through back on Caprica. It wasn't just for his sake that she wanted to do this thing or for the sake of thumbing her nose at authority. Sharon and Kara had been friends for years before any of them knew Sharon was a Cylon. They had become friends again in the weeks the three of them had been together before Helo and Kara had returned to Galactica. And if he did what he knew had to be done to make Kara stay on Galactica, she'd never forgive him. In fact, she'd probably kill him, if they ever saw each other again.

"You okay, Karl? You seem a little distracted." She stood and took a step toward him.

"I'm fine." He shrugged, chewed at his cheek for a second. "Just pre-mission jitters." Helo stood as well, his mind whirling at the speed of light. No matter what he did to make sure she remained on Galactica, Kara would be implicated in his crimes; there was no help for that. But he thought she could weather that storm without permanent repercussions with either the Old Man or Apollo.

He felt the weight in his right pocket of the wire stripper. It wasn't much, but it should do the trick, provided Kara wasn't expecting anything…

"Makes you feel more alive, doesn't it?" Kara observed with a reckless grin.

Helo gave her a lopsided smile. "Yeah." He gestured for her to go ahead of him. "I think we're about done." There were just a few minutes left before the refueling would begin. "We should get outta here." He slipped his hand into his pocket, took a firm grip on the handles of the stripper.

"Wouldn't want to get busted _now_, would we?"

Suspecting nothing, Kara turned her back on Helo. She had taken a step away from him, toward the Raider's hatch, when he pulled the stripper from his pocket and bashed her on the base of her skull in one quick, efficient move.

She dropped like a stone. Helo caught her before she could hit the deck, eased her down. There was blood on his hand, blood on the back of her head. "Oh, Gods…"

Throwing the wire stripper violently out the hatch, he laid Kara out flat, put his fingers to her throat to check her pulse. It was strong and steady. He took a deep breath, thanked the Gods that he hadn't killed her. Her head would hurt for a while, and probably her pride, but he could live with that.

Working as quickly as he could, Helo dragged her limp body from the Cylon ship and closed the hatch. Checking his chrono, he saw that the refueling team would be there in less than five minutes. Sliding his arms as gently as he could under her shoulders and knees, he lifted her and hurried to a storage compartment outside the hangar, away from casual traffic. He stripped off her tunic and outside tank, then, using the tunic to tie her hands and the tank as a gag, he laid her gently in the storage compartment.

He checked the back of her head, relieved to find that the bleeding had stopped. Kissing her forehead, he whispered, "I'm sorry, Kara, but I can't let you destroy your life. You have too much here to just throw it away."

Helo closed the compartment, but left it unlocked. He had to make it clear to everyone that she wasn't responsible for any of this, that it was his crime alone, but he also had to be sure that she would be able to free herself from the compartment, eventually, if no one found her before she woke.

xxx

Suited up and ready for launch, Helo strode into the hangar, heading straight for the heavy Raider, in position and ready for conveyance to the launch tubes. The deck crew swarmed over her, conducting their typical pre-flight operations – or at least as typical as could be for a ship that had never been launched by a Colonial crew.

Helo was nervous as hell, but all seemed to be going smoothly. Spare clothes for both himself and Sharon had already been loaded into the Raider, hidden from sight, as had a full medical kit and an assortment of weaponry and ammunition. Obviously, the theft from the munitions lockers hadn't been noticed yet.

"Everything's about ready for your test flight, Lieutenant," Cally told him as he walked up to the hatch. "Just you this morning?"

"Just me. No one else wanted to get up this early, I guess."

"That excuse didn't work for us, huh?" she smirked. "You can go ahead and board, sir, I'll let you know as soon as she's ready."

"Thanks, Cally." Just then, Helo picked up the sound of distant pounding. No one else seemed to have noticed yet, but to Helo, it was clearly the angry sound of boots smashing against metal. _Dammit, Starbuck, couldn't you have waited another five minutes?_

Continuing as though nothing was wrong, Helo boarded and sealed the hatch behind him. He ran to the pilot's seat, grabbed the helmet that awaited him there and slammed it onto his head, sealing the connection and activating the life support system. Toggling on his headset and trying to keep his voice level, even though every nerve ending was screaming at him to move, he said, "Cally, Helo. How's it looking?"

_"You're good to go, Lieutenant,"_ came the welcome news and Helo felt the faint shudder as the heavy Raider was conveyed into the tube.

A couple of tense moments passed and then the launch officer's voice came over his headset. _"Heavy Raider zero-zero-one, you are cleared for launch."_

_Lords of Kobol, guide me…_ Helo hit it while he still had the chance – if the pounding he had heard was indeed Starbuck, then she had to have been discovered by now. As the Raider was flung down the tube and into space, a red light began to flash on his console.

Lee Adama's voice over his headset, _"What the frak do you think you're doing, Lieutenant?"_

Knowing there was nothing he could say to adequately explain, Helo chose to ignore the CAG, just as he ignored the Dradis, which showed the Vipers currently flying the CAP closing in on his position. Instead, he spooled up the Raider's FTL drive.

_"Agathon, the CAP has orders to shoot you down if you don't turn back immediately."_

"I can't do that, Captain." A green light indicated that the FTL drive was ready; his course was already programmed in. "I'm sorry, Captain. Don't be too hard on her." With that he flicked a switch and was gone.

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Chapter 4

"…twenty-three… twenty-four… twenty-five…" Laying flat on the warm, soft shelf that served as a bed, hands resting on her stomach, Sharon stared at the dark pink ceiling – an ugly parody of flesh – and counted. She reached the count of 476 for the third time when a noise across the small, oddly shaped chamber drew her attention.

She didn't stop counting when Leoben entered, the aperture closing behind him. He walked toward her, not speaking until he had reached her side. Then, "Helo is coming, Sharon. He'll be here soon." Sharon blinked but said nothing. He smoothed the hair from her sweaty forehead in a surprisingly paternal motion. "It won't be long."

Her lips twisted into more of a grimace than a smile. "It really won't be long." _…four hundred ninety-seven… four hundred ninety-eight…_ "I've been having contractions for a while, now." _…five hundred… _If she weren't so frightened, she would have laughed at the look on Leoben's face.

"Frak!" That was all. Just one explosive word and he was gone, the room's only entrance opening and closing as he ran through it.

_…five hundred seven… five hundred eight…_

She wanted to believe him. She really did. Wanted desperately to believe that Helo was on his way to her now, that he was not only coming for her, somehow, but that he'd be able to take her away from here. Take _them_ away from here. Take them somewhere safe.

But the things Doral had told her… that Helo had abandoned her, that he'd been responsible for the humans' execution of the Valerii on Galactica… Doral had never lied to her before, but she didn't know if she could or should trust him.

_…five hundred thirty-seven… five hundred thirty-eight…_

And what about her – dreams? hallucinations? visions? – of Helo. He'd told her that he and she were never meant to be together. He didn't want the responsibility of being a father. He didn't want to be with only one woman, especially not a Cylon. That had the ring of truth to it. Another borrowed memory from the other her, the one who'd been executed, intruded.

_She sat at a card table in Galactica's rec room, Helo to her right, then two men she identified only as the "XO" and the "CAG," with Starbuck on her left. They all had cards in their hands. Tension radiated between the XO and Starbuck and Helo had mentioned a game of Pyramid on Geminon in an attempt to diffuse some of it._

_"What were you doing on Geminon?" the CAG had asked._

_Helo had gestured with his lollipop, answering, "There's a girl there I know."_

_The other her had looked at him and laughed. "What girl don't you know?"_

And that was part of the problem, wasn't it? Helo had no problems finding sexual partners, when he wanted them. Sharon couldn't compete with those strange girls on Geminon… with Kara Thrace…

There had been nothing between the two of them on Caprica. In fact, Kara had slept with someone who was part of the resistance there and Helo, as far as Sharon knew, hadn't touched anyone other than her since their first time, but still…

_…five hundred eighty-one… five hundred eighty—_

Sharon whimpered as the next contraction tore through her back and abdomen. The muscles in her stomach tensed, grew rigid with the force of the contraction. For a few seconds, she couldn't breathe. And then, as the pain faded and Sharon again began to count, Leoben returned.

He slid an arm under her shoulders, helped her to sit up. "I'm going to give you something to hold off the contractions, to give you enough time for Helo to get here." He pulled the pillow that had come with this luxury suite under the small of her back. "Prop yourself up on your arms – sitting will help slow things down."

She did as he instructed and he injected something into her left arm. Other than the faint sting of the needle, there was no pain. Remembering the last time she had been injected with something by a Cylon, Sharon shuddered. Raising her eyes to meet his, she said, "This can't be real. Helo isn't coming."

"This is real, Sharon. You're not alone. There aren't many of us, but we do exist. Events have been put into motion that will reunite you with your human lover, that will take you away from Cylon influence and closer than ever to God."

"I want to believe you…"

"Believe it. It's not God's plan for Cylons or humans to destroy each other, but to work together for a shared future. That shared future, Sharon, begins with this child."

Again the door opened, but this time it didn't close. The heavy stomping of a Cylon Centurion came to her through the open door and she caught a flash of chrome beyond Leoben's shoulders. From behind him came the voice of Doral. "I'm here to take the traitor to the medical facility. The monitors indicate that she is hav—"

"Having contractions, yes. I came to check on her. I was just about to call for an escort to the med facility."

"You shouldn't be here," Doral observed, taking a step that brought him into Sharon's view. "Why are you?"

Leoben shrugged expressively. "I was passing by her cell and heard her cry out. I came in to make sure nothing was wrong." A lie, Sharon knew, but a convincing one, she hoped.

Doral cocked his head to one side, his eyes locked on Leoben's. The blond Cylon's gaze never faltered. Finally, Doral ordered, "Bring her."

Obeying the other's command, Leoben carefully lifted Sharon from the bed and carried her to the passageway beyond the opening, where an uncomfortable-looking gurney awaited. He laid her down on the cold metal – the cold felt good against the bare skin of her legs and arms. When she was safely on the gurney, Leoben stepped away and Doral moved into position to push.

"Your services are not needed," Doral said. He didn't wait for a reply and Sharon felt the movement as he took her away.

xxx

After his first jump, the one that took him away from Galactica and into the unknown, Helo had quickly recalibrated the navigation computer, corrected his course, and executed a second, longer jump. When the heavy Raider returned to normal space, the Dradis picked up a large power source surrounded by several hundred much smaller ones – the basestar and its accompanying Raiders. He was far enough out that they shouldn't have detected his presence.

"I sure hope you do your job," he muttered as he switched on the Raider's built-in transponder and plotted his final approach. From what he and Kara had been able determine, the Cylon ship, in conjunction with the transponder, could be put into a kind of autopilot once it reached a certain distance from a Cylon outpost. Since he didn't know exactly what to look for to make a landing, Helo engaged that autopilot and hoped for the best.

Several of the bat-winged Raiders flew past his ship without paying him any attention at all, not even the whisper of a sensor sweep. Relaxing slightly, Helo ran his tongue between his lower lip and teeth and unstrapped himself from the pilot's chair. Standing, he glanced at the photograph he'd carried since he'd found it in Boomer's locker, now taped to a clear space on the ship's instrument panel.

Along with the jitters he'd felt earlier, Helo felt a rising excitement. One way or another, this would be over soon.

He dashed to the back of the ship as the autopilot engaged. Leaving the spare clothes and med kit where they were, he grabbed for the pack in which he and Kara had stowed a dozen or so shock grenades. They had been designed during the first Cylon war and, in addition to a massive concussion that would stun any living thing within a three to four meter radius, the grenades also emitted a powerful electromagnetic pulse that would take out all electronics within that same radius. Beneath the pack were stowed a sniper rifle – Kara's personal weapon, generally used only for target shooting – and two pistols, along with as much high-powered ammunition as they had been able to pilfer without raising red flags. The bullets for the rifle, at least, were essentially small, shaped charges, powerful enough to stop a Cylon Centurion with one shot, if it was properly placed.

Shoving the revolvers and the ammo in with the spare pistols – his heavier sidearm was strapped to his thigh – Helo shouldered the pack and returned with his burden to the cockpit just as he felt a slight lurch. The Raider had landed in the Cylon hangar. Checking his sensor readings, he saw that the atmosphere and gravity beyond the hull were both well within the human norm, no doubt for the benefit of the bio-Cylons. Opting for the greater visibility and hearing that would be gained, he removed his helmet and tossed it onto the copilot's chair.

One of the discoveries Kara had made in the days before Helo had joined her in working on the heavy Raider was a handheld device that seemed to be a kind of remote access unit to the main computer system aboard the heavy Raider's baseship. At least, that's what they thought it was – they'd never had a chance to test it. Helo popped it out of its socket and synchronized its signal with that of the Raider's transponder so that he could find the damn thing again. Once that task was complete, he pocketed the device and ran to the hatch.

As he stared at the sealed opening, unable to make himself activate the hatch controls, he heard Sharon's voice, as he had heard it so many times on Caprica. "Move it, mister!"

"Now or never, Agathon," he said aloud and opened the hatch.

He was surprised by a blast of warm, humid air on his face as the hatch slid aside. Through the opening, Helo saw what appeared to be flesh instead of bulkheads and deck and he had to fight his gag reflex as he stepped down onto the yielding surface. He heard the faint hiss and pop as the Raider's metal skin expanded in the warm air. The only other sound was a low hum, little more than a vibration. Taking a couple of steps away from the Raider, he closed and sealed the hatch and said a quick prayer that the ship would still be there when he returned.

A rapid survey of his immediate surroundings told Helo that there was no one else there, humanoid or toaster. He had to find a computer terminal into which he could plug the remote access unit, but he had no clue where to look. The chamber in which he stood held half a dozen heavy Raiders, but none of the bat-wing variety – those seemed to have their own individual berths, from what he could see of the vast cavern beyond his ship. There appeared to be two exits, which led to the interior of the basestar, but there was nothing to distinguish them from each other in his mind.

"What the hell…" he whispered and walked toward the nearest exit.

As he continued further and further into the ship, the weird, flesh-like walls, floor, ceiling all continued on as well. In places a thin, semi-transparent membrane covered them. Twice he had to duck into one of the odd niches in the fleshy walls to avoid discovery. The first time it happened, it was a troop of Centurions on the move. The second time it had been a pair of bio-Cylons – the blonde woman from Caprica and a man Helo had never seen before. In both instances, the padding of the ship aided his attempts at moving quietly, muffling the sound of his gear brushing against the walls.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he finally came to a section of the basestar where the flesh gave way to more familiar metal and plastic, but it wasn't long after the transition that he found a place that looked like it might hold a computer terminal that he could use to hack into the basestar's system. The chamber was small, only about three meters square, and he had no idea what it might be used for, but it did contain a table on which was a keyboard and monitor. A hasty search turned up a data jack into which he could plug the Cylon device.

Plugging it in, Helo started the scan. The information scrolled by on the monitor so fast he couldn't read it, even if he'd wanted to. Unfortunately, it looked as though the search was going to take some time and there was no guarantee – for that matter, no likelihood – that it would turn up any useful information. All Helo wanted was to find Sharon and not get caught.

Straightening, he turned, intending to peek outside the doorway, and came face to face with a bio-Cylon. He stumbled backward, caught his thigh on the corner of the table, and took hold of his sidearm, but before he could pull it, the man raised a hand in a placating gesture.

"I'm Leoben. There's no need to worry, Helo, I've been expecting you."

There was excitement in the Cylon's gray eyes as he lifted a finger to his lips, indicating the desire for silence. Helo could only stare as Leoben quietly moved to the doorway and peered down the passageway, just as Helo had been planning to do a moment before. The Cylon listened intently and Helo had the feeling that he was listening with more than his ears.

"Why haven't you killed me?" Helo asked, his hand still on the butt of his gun.

Leoben smiled and, ignoring Helo's question, said, "I hope Starbuck is in good health; I've missed our time together."

Realizing that his mouth gaped open, Helo closed it with an audible snap. "What the frak is going on?" A short beep from the remote pulled his eyes from Leoben. A red light indicated that the scan had been unsuccessful.

"You won't need that, Helo." Leoben nodded toward the device. "I'll take you to Sharon. She's very far along in her pregnancy and it's important that we get her off this ship and to the Galactica as soon as possible."

"Why? Why are you willing to help me?" More than a little confused, not trusting the Cylon's word that he wouldn't need the access device, Helo unplugged it and slipped it into one of the cargo pockets on his flight suit. He never took his eyes from Leoben.

"This has all happened before and it will happen again. This time it's part of my destiny to aid you and Sharon in your escape, in the birth of your child. When next the river of time flows past us, perhaps it will be my destiny to destroy you, or to have no effect on events at all." He shrugged. "We must go to Sharon now, Helo."

"Man, you are frakkin' insane." Helo shook his head and followed Leoben, having little choice in the matter.

xxx

Her eyes drifted closed again; there was nothing to see, anyway. Just an artificial ceiling applied over the dark pink of the baseship's flesh and too-bright lights glaring directly into her eyes. Sharon didn't want to listen to the conversation that swirled over and around her. The results of that conversation would impact directly on her, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had always known that Helo wasn't coming for her, wasn't here, and she found a measure of comfort in knowing that at least he was safe.

"I think we should just kill her before she contaminates any of the others with her… humanity." That was Six, of course, venomous as ever.

"This isn't about our desires, Six. If Sharon's child doesn't survive, then we must try again." Doral, this time. It was eternally Six and Doral, she thought, perpetually tearing her down with words or using her in whatever way they could. She supposed that was their nature, but she knew there could be so much more.

"I agree, but a second attempt does not need to be with Sharon and Helo. If her child dies, it's a sign from God that she isn't the chosen one."

Doral laughed. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Perhaps you could be the mother of the next generation, hmm? And the father could be that genius you kept on Caprica?" Sharon could almost feel the heat of Six's anger at Doral's mockery. "No, Six. All of the signs point to Helo; you know that as well as I do. The father of the next generation is the one who sacrificed himself for the good of humanity. If Sharon's child dies, then we find a way to take Helo from the humans, even if it's only for his DNA."

"You're a fool." Sharon heard the sharp tap-tap of Six's footsteps as she angrily walked away.

"Am I?" Again Doral laughed. "That remains to be seen."

Sharon didn't hear Doral leave, but, after a time, she became aware that she was alone. All was quiet, no sound save the beep of the monitors they had leashed her to and the faint background hum that was the heartbeat of the basestar.

More time passed with nothing to mark its passing and Sharon thought she heard another voice. She opened her eyes briefly, but the light was so intense and unwelcome that she closed them again immediately. There was a burning sensation in the small of her back and she thought that the contractions might be making their presence felt again, but it was nothing like before. Whatever Leoben had given her had indeed stopped the birth pains.

"Is there any other med bay on this frakking thing?" Helo's voice came to her through the semiconscious state she had slipped into. Another hallucination.

Then, closer, Leoben said, "She's here, Helo." She felt a hand at her stomach, but stubbornly refused to open her eyes; she would not give in again to the hallucinations.

"Thank the Gods," Helo breathed. His hand gently brushed her hair; she felt his lips at her forehead in a brief kiss. "Sharon." There was the slightest tingling sensation at the touch of his lips, but still she wouldn't open her eyes. "We're going to get you out of here."

"Why do you keep doing this to me? You're not here. You're not…" She wouldn't look at him. No. "I just want you to be safe. You don't have to help me…" One hand drifted to her stomach. "…us. I know you don't want to be a father." Hallucination or not, she had to make him understand that he had to go, that it wasn't safe for him here. "Helo, you're free to go home, now, back to Galactica."

"Sharon, baby, we _are_ going home, wherever home is. I'm not leaving you, not again. You and me and our baby are going to get off this ship and find someplace that we can live."

"That's not possible."

"You don't mind if I don't accept that, do you?" he teased. "It's my turn to protect you, Sharon, okay?" He kissed her again, his mouth warm on hers, and then she heard him move away. "Leoben, is there a more direct route back to that hangar?"

"More direct? Possibly. Safer? Probably not."

Sharon felt a vibration through the surface on which she lay and then a sensation of movement. She felt a warm hand on her shoulder, the touch electric. Helo. Finally, she opened her eyes to see the lights overhead moving rapidly past. Moving her head slightly to the right, she saw Helo's profile as he walked next to the gurney, or whatever it was she was on. She couldn't see Leoben – he must be the one pushing.

She closed her eyes again. It was all a dream – it must be, even though it felt more real than the others. A strange dream, to be sure, but at least this time, it wasn't a nightmare.

The movement of the gurney on which she lay stopped abruptly and she heard something heavy hit a wall and then a slithering sound as it slid to the floor.

"Going somewhere?" Sharon's eyes shot open at the sound of Six's voice. Turning her head to the side, she saw Helo pull his sidearm only to have it knocked from his hand by a kick from Six.

"Helo!" she shouted as Six came in for another blow, but he caught her wrist before her fist could connect.

Sharon tried to move, but as she rolled onto her side, she saw Leoben slumped against the wall, unconscious, a bloody bruise on his forehead. There was blood on the wall, not much, but enough to tell her that Six must have thrown him head first into the wall.

"You can't have her, Helo." Six had Helo pinned to the wall, an arm torqued up behind his back. "She's ours, the baby is ours." He tried to break free but she pushed harder, grinding his face to the wall. "You are ours."

"No," Sharon whispered. Cradling one arm around her enormous belly, she slid to the floor, eyes on Helo's pistol, which lay between her and the two struggling against the wall. They didn't seem to notice her.

"You're wrong, bitch." Helo snapped his head back fast, smashing Six in the face hard – she clearly hadn't been expecting it.

The movement was enough for him to break away from her and lunge toward the fallen pistol, but Sharon was already there. She aimed it at Six and fired as a contraction ripped through her. The first bullet hit her in the hip and Sharon forced her aim higher. Six's nose bled from Helo's blow. Sharon's second bullet took her in the throat.

The pistol dropped again to the floor – she no longer had the strength to hold it. She heard Leoben stir behind her. "It's not safe for you here," she told Helo.

He began to laugh.

xxx

Helo followed Leoben with Sharon through the twists and turns of the ship, retracing their route to the hangar in which he'd left the heavy Raider. It was difficult to believe that one of the bio-Cylons was actually helping him and Sharon, but it seemed to be true. It was equally difficult to believe that they had almost reached their destination with no further sign of pursuit other than that bitch Six.

As things stood now, it seemed almost as though her appearance as they left the med bay was more along the lines of a personal vendetta than an attempt to prevent their escape. She had been alone, for one thing, and unarmed. They had still be in the medical facilities, following the only corridor in that part that would take them to an exit.

"I just don't get it," Helo finally said to Leoben.

"Don't get what?"

They had long since made the transition back to the more organic-looking part of the basestar. They had lifted Sharon back onto the gurney and Leoben again pushed it, but they were moving somewhat slower than before due to the softer surface beneath its wheels.

"That blonde. Six. At first I thought she was there to stop us, but why was she there alone? Why hasn't anyone tried to stop us since?"

"Six has never liked Sharon. She was probably there to gloat. As to why we have met no resistance, the others who are with me are doing what they can to see the prophecy fulfilled."

"I thought you Cylons were all of one mind, that you wanted to destroy humanity."

"No, not all of one mind or even all of one faith. There are those of us who interpret the prophecies in a different way than the majority. Not all of us believe that humans must be destroyed. After all, we wouldn't exist without you."

"Prophecies?" They had come to a large intersection, one that Helo recognized as being within just a few minutes of the hangar. Not waiting for Leoben to answer, he moved quickly ahead to make sure the way was clear. Seeing and hearing no signs of movement, he waved for Leoben to come forward when Sharon cried out in pain. "Sharon?"

"It's the baby." Her voice was breathless, higher in pitch than he'd ever heard it.

"The injection must be wearing off." Leoben addressed Helo. "I gave her something a few hours ago to stop the contractions, but—"

"Contractions?" Helo felt like he'd just taken a blow to the stomach. "She was having contractions?"

"Yes."

"They were about ten minutes apart," Sharon added, her voice sounding more normal.

"Is this the first one since then?"

She didn't get the chance to answer Helo's question for suddenly they were no longer alone. From beyond the intersection came the mechanical sound of marching chrome toasters. Helo seemed to have forgotten that the same muffling aspect of the fleshy structure of the basestar that aided them in their escape also aided the Cylons. He looked around the corner again.

"Going somewhere?" Six asked.

She stood directly in their path. Two toasters came up behind her, weapons at the ready. Helo raised Kara's rifle and, without hesitation, shot her, the bullet taking her just above her right eye. One of the toasters fired on him as he swung toward it. Helo's only focus was to clear the way for Leoben and Sharon. The first Cylon's shot missed its target, but Helo's didn't. It, too, dropped like a stone, just as Six had a moment before. Even as he brought the rifle around for a shot at the second Cylon, it fired and the bullet slammed into Helo's shoulder.

He didn't feel any pain. _Shouldn't there be pain?_ he thought as he took out the second Cylon. There was only a burning sensation in his left shoulder and he couldn't move his arm. Which meant that he could no longer use the rifle. _Kara'll kill me if I lose her rifle._

The bodies of two toasters and one woman blocked the way before them. The whine of mechanical servos came from behind them. He dropped the rifle and swung his pack to the floor, shouting, "Leoben! Get her out of here!"

Sharon cried out as Leoben lifted her from the gurney and began to edge his way around the pile of chrome. Helo dug into the pack and grabbed one of the shock grenades as the sound of heavy footsteps rounded the bend at the far end of the passageway through which they had just come. Activating the grenade, he waited until they were a couple of meters closer to his position before throwing the grenade with all his strength toward the half-dozen toasters bearing down on him.

It hit the floor perhaps a meter in front of the lead Centurion, exploding on impact. Helo didn't wait to see if it worked as advertised – he picked up his pack and Kara's rifle and ran after Leoben and Sharon, almost tripping over the abandoned gurney.

Slinging the rifle over his shoulder as he ran, Helo pulled his sidearm. The rounds weren't as powerful as those he'd brought for the rifle, but he knew from experience that enough of them would still stop a toaster.

He rounded another of the weird protrusions that served as corners in this part of the basestar and saw Leoben just ahead. He could see the hangar and the heavy Raiders beyond the Cylon, but again the way was blocked by chrome. "Frak!"

Leoben turned his head at the sound of Helo's voice. "You've been hit," he observed.

Helo looked down to see that his arm was covered in blood. "You think?" He drew up next to him, glanced at Sharon who was again unconscious. "How many?"

"I see five. There could be more." There were plenty of places to hide within the hangar, especially if the toasters were accompanied by bio-Cylons.

"You don't seem worried."

The Cylon smiled. "What's meant to be will be."

Helo shook his head. _Definitely insane._ The pain in his shoulder was finally making itself felt, growing stronger by the minute. He chewed at his lower lip as he studied the Cylons in the hangar. They didn't seem to be aware of their presence. If he could toss one of the grenades in close enough to take out the toasters, but not close enough to have an adverse effect on the Raider…

Keeping his eyes on the toasters that kept him from his ship, he lowered the pack to the fleshy deck, took out another grenade. The Raider was about twenty-five meters distant, the toasters about half that. The blast radius of the grenade was three to four meters. To be safe, he'd have to get closer, risk them firing on him.

He looked back at Leoben. "As soon as this goes off, you move. Get her to the closest Raider. I'll be right behind."

Leoben nodded and made sure he had Sharon firmly in his arms. Helo activated the grenade and ran toward the group of Cylons between him and their way out. It only took a few seconds to close the distance enough for him to feel confident the grenade would do its job. He threw it and one of the toasters actually caught the thing while the others continued toward Helo. The one holding the grenade was instantly destroyed, the others not so much destroyed as permanently incapacitated, their electronic circuits fried.

He altered his course to run toward the Raider as Leoben passed the fallen Centurions. Without warning, someone unseen fired on them. Leoben was hit and faltered, but didn't go down. Helo took aim, firing his pistol at a man he had met a lifetime ago aboard Galactica – Aaron Doral. There was nothing of the mild-mannered public relations specialist about him now as he fired again at Leoben, who was almost to the Raider. That shot hit the Cylon as well and he fell to his knees, but still kept Sharon from falling.

Close enough to Doral now that there was no way he could miss, Helo shot him in the face. There was no more gunfire, no sound of Cylon servos, just the sound of Leoben coughing.

Helo ran to the Cylon, helped him to his feet. He started to take Sharon from him, but Leoben protested. "I've got her. Just get the hatch open. We don't have much time."

Tapping in the sequence to open the hatch, Helo got the Raider open and helped Leoben inside. The Cylon carried Sharon in a few steps but then couldn't go any further. Again he dropped to his knees, laid Sharon on the floor of the Raider as gently as he could and collapsed beside her. Helo saw two large wounds on his back – the blood looked black in the faint light that came in through the open hatch. He hit the controls to seal it and then ran to the cockpit. He couldn't do anything for Leoben right now. He couldn't take the time to do anything but get this bird in the air and off the basestar.

xxx

Their escape from the basestar had taken every bit of skill he had. It had been months since he had done anything but the most simple piloting – since he had been partnered with Boomer, who had needed the practice. Leoben's allies had done their work well, but things had still been dicey. He had jumped at the first opportunity, more or less blind.

Allowing the heavy Raider to drift on her present trajectory, Helo headed back to check on Leoben and Sharon. He had been unable to strap either of them into the jump seats in the back of the ship, but Leoben had apparently been able to get Sharon strapped across several of them, lying flat, and had held onto the straps himself to keep from being flung about the Raider during their rocky flight.

The Cylon had entangled an arm in the straps, either knowing he wouldn't be strong enough to hang on or knowing he would pass out from the blood loss. And he had lost a lot of blood, Helo saw. Helo was feeling a little woozy himself. He crouched down next to Leoben and checked his pulse, which was weak and erratic. Gray eyes opened at the touch of Helo's fingers.

"Are we away?"

"Yes. Let me have a look at those wounds."

"I'm dying."

"I'm sorry." He was surprised that it was true and that he wouldn't have the opportunity to learn more about this madman who had saved his family.

"Don't be, Helo. If you get them to Galactica safely, then my purpose has been fulfilled." He smiled. "My only regret will be not seeing Starbuck again."

Sharon began to stir restlessly, whimpering. Both men turned toward her.

"Another contraction," Leoben said. "They're coming more frequently."

"Gods…" He couldn't do this. Sharon was giving birth, the man who had helped them to escape the Cylons was dying, and they were in the middle of nowhere. He shook his head, started to get up, muttered, "I have to program in the course for Kobol…" That was the only place he and Kara had been able to think of where they might have a chance to survive.

"You must return to Galactica, Helo."

"No way. They'd shoot us down on sight."

"It's the only way."

"I stole this ship. I deserted. Hell, for all I know I committed treason. If I take us back to Galactica, we're all dead."

"You'll be safe there, Helo, the way has been prepared."

"What the frak are you talking about?"

Sharon cried out again, louder, stronger. She was awake and in the midst of a strong contraction.

"Help me up," Leoben ordered. "If you get me to the cockpit, I can program the coordinates to get you back to your fleet. You take care of Sharon. She needs you."

Seeing no other course, Helo did as Leoben said. He untangled the Cylon's forearm from the jump seat straps and lifted him, slinging Leoben's arm over his right shoulder. He half-dragged the dying Cylon to the cockpit and into the pilot's seat.

"You'd better strap me in."

Helo belted Leoben into the chair. "You know where the fleet is?"

"Not exactly, but I know where it was a few hours ago. I can get you to that point, get you on the right heading. You'll have to take it from there." Helo must have looked dubious about the whole thing, for Leoben continued, "Believe me, Helo. The Soldier will bring you home."

Shaking his head, not understanding, he said, "I just want my family to be safe."

"Helo! The baby's coming!" Sharon's voice was terrified.

"Go. I won't initiate the jump sequence until you give the word."

Sharon screamed, a wordless cry and Helo ran to her, dropped down beside her, jarring his injured shoulder. He ignored the pain as he unstrapped her from the jump seats. "I'm here, Sharon. I'm here."

"It's coming!"

Trying to remember everything he knew about childbirth (not much and gained from the entertainment industry), he bent her legs at the knees and she immediately began to push. He was shocked to see the baby's head begin to emerge from between her legs. "Gods, Sharon, you weren't kidding."

Helo looked around frantically for something to cover the baby, but there was nothing. Then he remembered the supplies stowed under the decking. Along with the spare clothes, there was also at least one blanket. It would be clean and soft and that was all he cared about right now.

As the force of the contraction subsided for a moment, Helo gave Sharon's hand a squeeze. "I'll be right back."

"Helo!" She tried to hang onto his hand as he pulled away, but she was too weak. That scared him – she had always been stronger than he was. Always. He dashed to the compartment that held their supplies and dug until he found the blanket, ran back to her side.

Smoothing the hair from her sticky forehead and cheeks, he thought that maybe Leoben was right. Maybe it was better to go to Galactica after all, where Sharon – and Leoben, if he survived – could get medical attention. He could trust Doc Cottle.

He realized that Sharon was looking at him and he smiled at her. "We're gonna get through this. We'll be okay."

She returned his smile just before her face crumpled with the force of another contraction.

xxx

His first day back in command and things were not going well. One of his pilots was in medical with a severe concussion – she ought to be in the brig – another had deserted, taking with him a near priceless military asset in the form of a Cylon heavy Raider. And yet, William Adama felt as though all was right with his world, or as right as it could be.

Lee was in medical with Kara and had assured him only moments before that she was going to be okay. Kara was safe. His son was safe. There was no sign for the moment of Cylon pursuit…

"Commander, Dradis contact, bearing three-two-six."

Gaeta's words destroyed his brief feeling of well being. He had known it was too good to last.

"What do you have, Lieutenant Gaeta."

"A Cylon heavy Raider, sir. It appears to be alone."

"Commander? It's Helo… Lieutenant Agathon, sir. He's requesting an emergency landing and for Doc Cottle to meet them in the hangar."

And now it seemed that his missing pilot was returning with the stolen Raider…

Adama recalled the conversation with Helo not long before. Their discussion of home. The way Helo had focused so intently on the photograph of Boomer. It struck a chord in the heart and mind of the old soldier. Raising a brow, Adama looked at Dee. "Put him through on a secure channel."

"Yes, sir." She hesitated. "Sir, it sounds like there's a baby crying in the background…" Dee sounded confused, as well she might.

_"The bio-Cylons aren't just machines, Commander," Helo said. "They're more like us than you know."_

_"I see. You know this because of your time with the other Lieutenant Valerii."_

_"Yes, sir." The man hesitated, clearly in uncertain territory, before continuing, "She's pregnant."_

_The news that Cylons and humans could procreate… It had been a long time since anything had shocked Adama. "That is significant. Yours?"_

_Sucking nervously at his cheek, Helo nodded. "Yes, sir, but there's more." His gaze held Adama's. "The last thing Sharon said before she led the toasters away from us was that she loved me."_

_Adama frowned. "Do you believe that?" The idea that humans and these bio-Cylons were capable of breeding was one thing, but love?_

_Again Helo nodded. "I do, Commander." He absently wove the partially chewed stick of a sucker back and forth between the fingers of his right hand and poked his tongue into his cheek, then, "The bio-Cylons are capable of complex emotions. Love. Fear. Jealousy. Loyalty…" Again his eyes met the Commander's. "I think we may be able to use that against them."_

"Helo, Galactica Actual."

_"Commander Adama?"_ Helo was clearly surprised to hear him. Adama did indeed hear a baby crying over the still open channel. _"Sir, it's, ah…good to hear your voice. Sir, Sharon, our daughter… we need Doc Cottle."_ Helo sounded to Adama like a man torn between duty and family, sounded like he was about to break.

The voice of a dead man – a dead _machine_ – whispered in his head. "You're instrumental to the survival of the next generation. It's up to you to bring mother, father, and child home…"

"The doctor will be there. Come on home, son."

THE END


End file.
